I thought I seen something on the history channel or something like that there were a race of "little people" @ one point in history.

It could have been the beer I was drinking @ the RAM that night, but I think that is what I saw.

Quote from: McrowI thought I seen something on the history channel or something like that there were a race of "little people" @ one point in history.

It could have been the beer I was drinking @ the RAM that night, but I think that is what I saw.

Dude, you have the RAM up there in Minneapolis, or was this at GC Indy?

Because that place ROCKS.

EDIT:  Here's that story.

Quote from: Zachary The FirstDude, you have the RAM up there in Minneapolis, or was this at GC Indy?

Because that place ROCKS.

EDIT:  Here's that story.

Nope, no RAM here in Minneapolis. When I got back from the RAM after helping setting up the booth Rafi and I went to the RAM for some beer.

Yup that is the think I saw, and what I would base halflings on.

they were agressive, Island hopping, and had some skill @ making tools.

I would streach that out to being somewhat Naval craftsmen, who are agressive towards other races.

I like Hobbits when they're in Middle-Earth.  I do not like watered-down Hobbits (whatever you may call them) in other fantasy settings.

I just asked a friend the title of the thread.  His response:

"I don't despise them!  They're great after a long, slow cook with a little tobasco!"  

In a friend's Arduin campaign, many moons ago, halflings were hunted down for sport, because everyone hated them.  'Tamed' halflings had the tendons of the Archilles' heel cut, so that they couldn't run properly, and were always hobbling along whenver they ventured out.

I have to say that the way hobbits are portrayed by Tolkien can be very off-putting. They seem very insular and naive and unaware of just how dangerous the outside world is. They only really seem appealing (besides the protagonists of the books) in The Scouring of the Shire, where they finally show they have backbone and can defend themselves. I especially liked how the head of the Tooks finally asserted his position as Thane of the Shire and closed off the Greenhill Country from Saruman's men and half-orcs. Add to that the way Merry and Pippin came into their own as tough and valiant warriors, even intimidating "Sharkey's Men" into backing down. That's the kind of halflings I like.

I think that people miss an important point re halflings in Tolkein's work: They were hard to corrupt and could resist corrupting powers like the ring much better than any other race.

Some people may consider halflings weak or lazy, but they have tremendous willpower, more than a lot of humans. Just ask Boromir....

I'm okay with them, but NOT when they're Kenderized or cannibals or otherwise gimmicky.

Better to just admit that they don't have any purpose except to invoke warm memories of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, so just step aside and let them get to it, already.

I find that overly slavish Tolkien-esque hobbits are more offputting that 'random short race X'.  I rather LIKE the new directions halflings have been taken, making them more interesting and less 'same old, same old'.

Tolkien's hobbits were meant to represent the everyman, whereas his 'humans' were often far more mythic in scope.  Works fine as a literary conceit. In fact, there is very little stopping one from considering halflings as 5-6 feet tall and everyone else as honest injun giants at 10-12 feet and up, if you really wanted to.  


In D&D HUMANS are the everyman, the standard by which all other races are judged (better or worse), which is why they have no stat modifiers inherent to them.  HUMANS are easier for most people to self identify with, and a game without humans in it is often doomed to a short shelf life. Make that, humans as protagonists.

Halflings, in that sense, are often 'human like', or far more so than most of the other fantasy races but can not properly speaking replace humans for the reason stated above. Thus they can seem superflous.

Again, there's nothing to stop anyone from running a "Belkar" type halfling, y'know.

Being small and good at stealth makes halflings suprisingly good at ambushes, assassinations,  etc.

Quote from: SpikeI find that overly slavish Tolkien-esque hobbits are more offputting that 'random short race X'.  I rather LIKE the new directions halflings have been taken, making them more interesting and less 'same old, same old'.

I guess I don't see it that way, at all. In my opinion, you put Hobbits (let's leave TSR's clumsy lawsuit dodge out of this, they're Hobbits) in your world if you want Hobbits, otherwise you don't. Why? Because the players who want to play Hobbits want to play them because then they can have their Bilbo clone. It's that simple. It's the same reason you put barbarians in your setting: So that players can clone Conan. If you don't what to use the cliche, that's fine, but if you do elect to use the cliche, at least realize what it's useful for in the first place. Savage cannibal Hobbits are about as useful to players as effette, tea-sipping barbarians.

Ah, but if they really really want to recreate Bilbo, they've always got MERP...

Besides, really solid look at Conan suggests that the barbarian class is a piss poor interpretation of 'who he was'.

I like new halflings too. I also like hobbits though. I also like kender...Tasslehoff made me laugh. Who I got sick of was the whiney ass Raistlin....that character was like all of the WoD vampires and Drizzt all wrapped up into one.

IMO halflings don't need to come from myth, fable, or fiction to make them fun to play.

They're fat AND short.
You get to exercise two prejudices for the price of one.